Match Games

A Lukas Novak Investigation

A secret conspiracy.
A corrupt soul.
A psychopath returned from the grave.

And the Beautiful Game, fanatically followed by millions, all over the world.

Slightly disheveled, self-proclaimed investigative journalist Lukas Novak inadvertently disturbs a hornets’ nest when following up a mysterious blog’s match-fixing allegations at football giants Mancunia FC. When the wrong people start getting hurt the hunter becomes the hunted and Lukas finds himself a non-person, on the run from a GBH charge.

Unsure who and what to trust Lukas stumbles upon answers that he hasn’t been looking for and that change the course of his investigation and his own life forever.

On the surface Match Games aims to be a ’Nordic Noir’-style, hard-hitting, real life, dark and gritty mystery thriller, set in Northern England.

Beyond the surface it describes the struggle of one man against virtually every evil today’s society has come to accept as the norm, where the bully wins every time because the masses are so dumbed down by the dilution of culture and so called freedom of the press that true values are in danger of being lost forever.

In his laborious struggle against the current and against conventional and emotional ties holding him back Lukas emerges from near death to overcome his own nemesis.

Reviews:

“really exciting and well researched”

“the characters are well drawn and fascinating”

“thoroughly good read”

“looking forward to the rest of the trilogy”

Excerpt:

‘I don’t know you,’ he says.
She plays with her glass. ‘You think.’
‘I don’t know what I know or what I don’t know any more.’
‘You said you know what you don’t want. And you said you didn’t want to wait and fret. I said I felt the same and we went ahead. Are you backtracking now?’
‘No. It’s just I don’t know what to believe any more. Maybe the life I want is unobtainable, in the long run. With everybody out there behaving like a total bastard.’
‘Not everyone. Just the bastards,’ she says. ‘Not you. Not me. I hope you’re seeing that clearly.’
He studies his glass. ‘I am.’
‘What are you doubting?’
‘I’m afraid that it won’t work out. You and me, and this whole thing we’re involved in.’
‘But we’re in charge here. You’re looking at the mountain as a whole. That’s too much to get your head round.’
‘One step at a time?’
‘Exactly. You and me, this’— she draws a circle in the air— ‘We both want all this to work, don’t we?’
‘Do we? He asks.
‘It’s the same damn thing, isn’t it? The same reason you’re thinking you won’t succeed in nailing these bastards. You think you’re not good enough. To get them. Or for me.’ He shrugs. ‘What did you say? Sometimes it’s time to leave behind what we’ve believed in, what we’ve learned from our upbringing, because we find it’s no longer applicable to our lives?’
‘Did I really say that?’ He shrugs.

‘Match Games’ is one of ‘The HemiHelix Effect’ series of novels.

‘In human psychology the HemiHelix Effect is the individual’s realisation that one has the ability to change direction, whatever the circumstances‘